Bone Silence

Bone Silence is the finisher for Alastair Reynolds's Revenger trilogy. The young adult fiction aspect really started to be a thing in this one. The novel feels way too long with its nearly 700 pages (in the Finnish translation). Quite early on I was already wishing the story would just skip to the part where the mystery of the setting would finally be explained.

Marooned in Realtime

Marooned in Realtime by Vernor Vinge is a loose sequel to The Peace War. The novel takes place millions of years after the events of the previous one: now few-hundred-strong remnants of humankind are on the brink of extinction. The novel's carrying narrative is a murder mystery but the science fiction was far more interesting. The genre's typically weak characterization leaves the investigation lukewarm.

Shadow Captain

Shadow Captain is the second book in Alastair Reynolds's Revenger trilogy. I didn't find is as entertaining as the first novel because the plot early on promises a predictable and very annoying predicament and then moves toward it ever so slowly. I had hard time resisting the urge to skip to a part where the annoyance had been resolved.

The Peace War

The Peace War by Vernor Vinge is a science fiction novel in which wars on Earth are over. A faction called Peace Authority has taken over the world thanks to a device called Bobbler that creates spherical, mirror-surfaced force fields that are seemingly affected only by gravity. By trapping military units, missiles in the air, even whole cities, permanently in bobbles, the Peace Authority is able to defeat everyone opposing them.

God Emperor of Dune

I was -- I guess still am -- on a reading slump, not being able to finish full length novels. I had The Second Great Dune Trilogy by Frank Herbert borrowed from the library for months and eventually had to return it half-finished. It didn't help that it's a massive hardcover 3-in-1 book that's difficult to hold comfortably. The second book in this trilogy, Heretics of Dune, didn't exactly grab me either. But I did at least get through the one before it.

Revenger

Revenger by Alastair Reynolds was not marketed as young adult fiction but I guess it's the young protagonist and the straightforward space opera story that led it to get classified as such, the book even winning the 2017 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book. A praise quote on the back cover from SFX claims the novel to be the most enjoyable of Reynolds's books. I'm not sure if that's quite true -- especially now with almost another full decade of books from the author in the mix -- but Revenger is definitely from the top end.

Inhibitor Phase

Had I read Absolution Gap right when it came out in 2003, it would have been a long 18-year-wait to see if Nevil Clavain's last wish would lead to anything like I suspected. But because I read Gap just last year, I only had to wait until now that I got to reading Inhibitor Phase (which was published in 2021).

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1928 – 1982) was first translated into Finnish in 1989 by Kari Nenonen in the wake of Blade Runner (1982), the film that is based on the novel. The translation got titled Palkkionmetsästäjä ("bounty hunter") and also had 'Blade Runner' on the cover like many later English printings of the novel -- impossible to make the connection between the book and the film just on their names. A couple of years ago, in 2022, there was a second Finnish translation by J. Pekka Mäkelä, instead titled after the original novel name: Uneksivatko androidit sähkölampaista?

Terminal World

Terminal World is one of Alastair Reynolds's standalone novels. Its Finnish title, Pääteasema, discarded the world part and is instead the (compound) word for terminal station. It gives off a somewhat different meaning but I suppose it can be interpreted in a more figurative way that aligns with the original too. But I definitely took it in the former and I think that threw me off a bit.

Elysium Fire & Machine Vendetta

Elysium Fire continues Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies in Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space setting -- and Machine Vendetta ends them, for the time being, at least. The expected Melding Plague didn't show up yet so I'm thinking Reynolds might still visit the Panoply's continuing duty to defend democracy in the Glitter Band, even if Tom Dreyfus was implied to have exited stage left. But who knows.

Eversion

For whatever reason, Eversion by Alastair Reynolds was shelved among thriller/suspense books instead of the usual scifi I'd expect the author's novels to be found at. I'd say scifi section would've been perfectly fine in this case too.

Poseidon's Wake

Poseidon's Wake is the third and (currently) the final volume in Alastair Reynolds's Poseidon's Children series. There's another time skip forward, different members of the Akinya family taking the spotlight. The novel has interesting details and numerous story points to continue from but the plot drags in parts, the ending is unnecessary and forced, and character relations are painful to witness -- the book reminded me a lot of the author's 10 years older novel, Pushing Ice.

On the Steel Breeze

On the Steel Breeze is the second novel in the Poseidon's Children trilogy (series?) by Alastair Reynolds. The Akinya family's still in the protagonist role but the series didn't turn out to be the kind of family saga I was expecting -- hoping, even. I don't know how the Akinyas managed to squander their riches but they did have the time: this novel takes place a couple of centuries later. Only a single human generation has passed, though: aging having been defeated once again.

Permafrost (& Neuromancer revisited)

I came upon Permafrost, an Alastair Reynolds novella at one of the local libraries, and ended up reading it right then and there -- being a novella it's not a long read. Its theme didn't turn out to be the greatest -- has there ever been a good time travel story? Permafrost also uses first person perspective, which is atypical for Reynolds.

The Prefect (Aurora Rising)

And back to the Revelation Space again...

The Prefect is not a continuation to the Inhibitor Sequence, however, instead taking its reader back in time -- assuming they've been going through the series in publication order -- to Yellowstone in its golden age, before the Melding Plague. The novel's name was later changed to Aurora Rising but that didn't make it to the translated print I read.

Blue Remembered Earth

For a change, I read an Alastair Reynolds novel not set in the Revelation Space universe: Blue Remembered Earth is the first of his Poseidon's Children books. The setting has humanity still confined to the Solar System but I don't see why it couldn't be in the same universe, just earlier in time. The title started to sound ominous to me as it seemed Earth was just fine in the book. I was expecting something apocalyptic to happen.

Absolution Gap

Absolution Gap is a direct sequel to Redemption Ark in Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space. It has some amazingly imaginative elements and the story seemed to get truly wild after it got going. But it didn't last all the way to the end: central characters were written off in lame ways and the narrative fizzled out. Multiverse stuff gets worse in Gap: always too convenient a tool to explain stuff -- anything can happen.

Redemption Ark

I can say now that Chasm City is definitely preferable to be read before Redemption Ark: a key character from the former novel appears in the latter and he will mean very little to you otherwise. In fact, one should read most of the short stories in the Galactic North anthology beforehand as well -- which I hadn't done. I was quite annoyed when Redemption Ark was referring to the events in them.

Chasm City

People further than me into Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space series say Chasm City is readable at any point: it's a standalone prequel that deepens the setting without being integral to the overarching plot. I was going to adhere to that advice and ignore the novel until later but then the back cover of Redemption Ark's Finnish translation advertised it as the "third book in the series". I thought I might as well read Chasm City first and then continue with Ark.

A Deepness in the Sky

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge is a loose prequel to his earlier novel A Fire Upon the Deep. It features the previously-introduced character Pham Nuwen when he was still living his actual life. He's far from being the sole viewpoint in the story, though. After the prologue he's barely even mentioned until he eventually floats into the spotlight.